1000 Times
by Iron Charlie
Summary: "Do you seriously not understand what love is? Love, this love, is a cage. I can't break free, and I don't want to. I will come back 1000 times, if it means that on the last time, you would say you love me too. I have come back 1000 times, and every single time, you've rejected me. I wasn't joking. So you ask me, what proof is there that I love you, and I'm telling you."


1000 Times

It happened after she went out with another guy. His name didn't matter, neither of them even knew it.

The two of them had an unspoken agreement not to date anyone else. They would flirt, they would fight, they would become friends. And both would slowly wait until she was ready to let him in.

But she had done it. She had got it into her head that she could break her own rules, their rules, and go out with Mark, or Matt, something with an M. She knew the consequences, the fragile state they were in. Yet she decided to break the holding pattern they had created and wreck whatever they didn't have.

It had been a last minute date. He hadn't even had the time to get mad and yell at her beforehand, so he was biding his time, trying to figure out why she had gone out with Malcolm, or Michael.

He was waiting when they got back from Hogsmeade. He was leaning against a pillar fiddling with his wand as the would-be couple exited the passageway laughing.

They were still laughing as they stumbled upon the heartbroken boy.

"James," Lily breathed, still smiling. "What are you doing here?"

He pushed himself off the pillar and faced the two. "I might ask you the same question."

Lily turned and looked at nameless boy. "We were just getting back from Hogsmeade."

"Key word being just. Do you know what time it is?"

The boy with no name stepped forward, not realizing the gravity of the tension he was stepping into. "It's just a little after 11, I don't see what the big deal is."

James turned to his rival, getting visibly angrier. "The big deal is, Martin, that curfew is at 11. Right now, it is 11:17. You are late, and my duty as Head Boy clearly states to give detention to those who disregard curfew."

"My name's Mason."

Lily stepped forward, not closer to her date whose name had gone in one ear and out the other, but closer to James, who had unconsciously stepped closer to her as well. "Are you mad because I'm disregarding rules, for once, or are you mad because I'm on a date?"

"Why do you have to make it about you? The world doesn't revolve around you, Lily!"

"Yeah, but you do!"

"Maybe, I'm just shocked and disappointed that my fellow Head isn't leading by example and following the rules, something she lives by!"

"Well what if she doesn't want to follow every single rule every single day?!"

"Well color me shocked and amazed, Lily Evans likes to live!"

"Uh, Lily?" Mason, the boy who both of the Heads liked to forget, finally interjected, feeling more than slightly uncomfortable.

"Will you shut up Mitchell?!"

Lily glared at James and composed herself, taking a step back from him, and turned to her date. "I'm sorry Mitchell. Just go to the common room, and I'll meet you up there."

"Eh, I don't think so," came the reply from the forgotten boy.

"Why? It's only quarter past 11."

"Because my name's Mason."

As the boy with the nonexistent name walked away, Lily turned to James, her fury quickly resurfacing. "Why the hell would you do that?!"

"What, do my job?"

"That wasn't doing your job that was being an ass!"

"Oh, so now I'm an ass? You're the one that forgot his name!"

"So did you!"

"Yeah, but I wasn't his date!"

Lily stepped back, lowering her voice. "Is that what this is about? Me going on a date?"

James's voice softened, the words hanging in his throat. Thinking of all the times he wanted to come clean, he finally said, "Well, what else would it be?"

Lily choked, and after a few moments, said, "What?"

James looked away, seemingly trying to gather the courage, or the words, and finally threw the last punch into the glass ground that they had been standing on.

"Seriously, what else would it be? What do you think we've been doing?"

Lily kept suspiciously quiet as James went on, "What do you think I feel? When you think of me, and what we've been doing for the last year, what do you think has been happening?"

Finally, Lily looked up and answered. "We've been becoming friends. At least, that's what I thought."

"Well, that's what you've been doing. I've been falling more and more hopelessly in love with you every day for the past four years."

"Don't say that."

"Say what? That I love you? Why not, it's true?!"

"No, it's not!" Lily broke out of the quiet stupor they'd both been in. "You've just been messing with me. You don't really love me, we're just friends, and that's all we've been. So stop saying things you don't mean, because it hurts me too."

James looked at her in disbelief. "Is that what you think? That's what you think I feel? You think I don't care? You think that I don't get butterflies when I see you? You think that every time I tease you, it's not to get a reaction out of you? That every time we flirt—don't deny it—I'm not elated and confused for days afterwards?"

"Stop it! Stop saying things you don't mean! You know I hate it when you mess with me!"

"I'm not messing with you!"

"Oh, but you are!" Lily came after him with a finger ready to wag in his face disapprovingly as James backed away. "You claim you've fancied me for years, and it's all been a game! You got over me long ago!"

"You're mad!"

"Oh, am I? Then how is it that James Potter, renowned Quidditch star and Hogwarts playboy fell in love with Lily Evans, clever Mudblood?"

James's thinly veiled anger renewed itself as quickly as it had disappeared. "Don't call yourself that."

Lily scoffed. "And why not? It's true! Everyone knows it. And you haven't answered my question."

"What, the moronic question of why I love you?"

"It's not moronic! It is a valid question!"

"You can't ask why you love someone! Do you even know what love is?"

"Of course I do, how can you ask that?"

"Because you can't ask me, after all that we've been through, if I love you. You can't need more proof."

"More proof?! I haven't gotten any!"

"Do you even know how long I've waited for you? How long I've bit my tongue, knowing that it wasn't the right moment? How many times I've asked you to love me back, and you've laughed at me?"

"Then why do you keep coming back James? If I've treated you this badly, then why do you keep coming back?"

"Because I love you."

"So? Words don't mean anything. You're just being cruel."

"Do you seriously not understand what love is? It's not something I can stop. Love, this love, is a cage. I can't break free, and I don't want to. I will come back 1000 times, if it means that on the last time, you would say you love me too. I _have_ come back 1000 times, and every single time, you've rejected me. I wasn't joking. Not one time. So you ask me, what proof is there that I love you, and I'm telling you."

After a moment, Lily whispered, "You were serious?"

"When it comes to you, I've always been serious."

"But…but…" Lily stuttered.

"But what, Lily? I have tried to become your friend, but it's just too damn hard. I can't be your friend because I will always want more. I will always want to be with you, and I will always love you," James explained, exasperated. "That's the bottom line. I am too sick and too tired and too emotionally unstable to keep doing this dance with you."

Lily breathing halted. "What?"

"I'm done, Lily. I'm done." And with that remark, he walked backwards to join his mates upstairs.

As Lily watched him walk away, her heart broke. The reality of James's words came crashing onto her, and the only that that came out of her mouth was a small whimpering sound that sounded suspiciously like, "But I love you."

James halted in his mission to drown his sorrows in Firewhiskey when he heard her murmur. The boy with a broken heart turned around slowly, and said the only thing that could cross his mind: "What?"

Lily stayed remarkably still while the object of her deep affections walked slowly towards her. "I do love you," she said more strongly. "I'm not good with explaining how I feel, James. Not like you. But I do know that I can't breathe when you're not around. I can't, I can't think of a life without you in it. I love you."

James stalled his movements in the middle of the dark hallway. "Why now?"

Lily laughed mirthlessly. "Because tonight I saw what the world without you would look like. And I was convinced you were over me, and I'd be a bitch to tell you now that I loved you."

James's continued walking as he asked incredulously, "What?"

"I was sitting tonight with whatshisname, thinking about how he didn't care about what's happening outside of the school," Lily explained. "He's going to move in with his grandparents in Salzburg after we graduate, and I realized that I don't want that life! And immediately after I made this realization, I see you and your fire, reminding what I do want."

James stopped moving a few feet from where Lily stood.

"You are so brave, James. And I don't have the strength to deal with what's going on outside of this damn school without you. I want to help fix the world, but I can't do it without you. I can't do it without your strength, or your courage, or your love, and I don't want to."

She finally looked up at him with tears in her eyes.

"I love you, James. And I want to be with you. I want to face the terrors of this crappy world we inherited with you. And I want to be yours."

The echo of Lily's declaration was the only thing this particular hallway would hear for several heavy moments.

"See, you say you have trouble expressing yourself, but there you go. You're not doing too bad."

James's attempt to lighten the conversation succeeded, as Lily giggled and he grinned foolishly.

After a moment, James stepped forward into Lily. She looked up at him as he gathered her hands into his chest. "I love you. And I'm only gonna ask once more because my heart can't handle it. Be mine, Lily?"

She held his gaze for what could have been seconds, but felt like several sunlit days, and grinned. "I think I can do that."

As their foreheads touched and their noses brushed, Lily looked up at James through her eyelashes. "I love you," she whispered. "Kiss me, James?"

James looked at her and smiled. "I think I can do that."

And as their mouths moved in tandem, their love for each other grew and the two lovers realized that they could face the world as they always hoped they could: together.


End file.
